In the end, Aggies win in hoops coach search

COLLEGE STATION – This all couldn’t have played out better for Texas A&M.

Mark Turgeon, never quite content in Aggieland, is at a “basketball” school in Maryland. Meanwhile Bill Byrne and the Aggies tabbed a guy in Billy Kennedy who’s simply a better fit in this neck of the prairie.

Kennedy’s best work is supposed to be on the court, not in the press room. That simply wasn’t the case Monday, when an emotional Kennedy dubbed A&M a “destination job” – and nearly cried when introducing his wife and one of his four children who attended his introductory press conference in the Cox-McFerrin Basketball Center of Reed Arena.

“You look at my track record, I’ve climbed the ladder a little bit different than a lot of people,” Kennedy said. “This is a dream job for me. I don’t want to go anywhere. There’s no Maryland, Kansas, Carolina, wherever. I’m from Louisiana, family is close, I’ve got a base there. Now I’m from Texas. I plan on retiring here.”

Simply, everyone, including Turgeon, is happier than they were two weeks ago, and A&M is saving about $1 million in the process. Meanwhile Kennedy, 47, is now making about $775,000 more than he was last week at Murray State, with a $1 million annual salary.

The Aggies were paying Turgeon nearly $2 million annually – a sweet payout for a guy who never got them to the Sweet 16 in four years, albeit he came breathtakingly close twice (perhaps he would have been a better fit for the A&M horseshoes team).

Turgeon is a really good coach, and he’s going to win at Maryland. By all appearances, Kennedy is a really good coach, and he likely won’t do any worse than Turgeon at A&M. And if it’s true he intends to mine Houston and San Antonio and Dallas for the top talent, he might even do better (the aforementioned Sweet 16).

Turgeon, who wasn’t making consistent inroads in three of the nation’s eight largest cities all within a few hours of campus, might have felt like he topped out in Aggieland, and I can’t blame him. His recruiting here wasn’t improving. And suddenly he was having to recruit against the guy in this state he drew so many comparisons to – Billy Gillispie, now at Texas Tech.

This all played out nicely for Turgeon, as well, because he’s out of here, and no longer will hear Gillispie’s name whispered in College Park, Md. Meanwhile Kennedy has drawn comparisons to Gillispie, A&M’s outstanding coach from 2004-07, for his Xs and Os acumen. But there was a big difference between Gillispie’s press conference seven years ago and that of Kennedy’s. Gillispie had no wife and kids to introduce – only himself to worry about in searching for his dream job (which was far from Aggieland).

Of the three, you get the idea Kennedy truly means it when he says A&M is a dream job – and that he’ll be forever grateful to the place that finally gave him a chance in a power conference.